


Be Here

by Sereko



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Clintasha - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 08:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14637642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sereko/pseuds/Sereko
Summary: Natasha's first thought is of Clint.





	Be Here

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Major spoilers for the ending of "Avengers: Infinity War"
> 
> This started as a post-movie reaction fic for Natasha and morphed into a bit of a Steve reaction fic as well. It's hard for me to write one without the other these days since their friendship just becomes more solid with every movie.
> 
> Also found on tumblr [here](http://asdreamsmaycome.tumblr.com/post/173870116961).

She couldn’t catch her breath. She tried to calm down, tried to pull a single, long, slow breath of air but her heart would stutter part-way through and the air would vanish as if it never were.

The world was liquid around her, melting together colors and emotions like the Reality Stone was at work. If only that were the case. Her heart wouldn’t feel like crumbling ash if it were all just another trick.

But Thanos was gone. The men around her had stopped fighting.

They had lost.

Her breath hitched again and she hated how loud the sound was in her ear. Not because it was the kind of eerie silence that everyone expected, but because she could all too clearly hear Okoye calling out for T’Challa and the racoon sniffling off to the right and endless layers of heartache echoing back at them from the battlefield as more and more people vanished.

How many had they lost? How many of her friends were gone?

Her heart upticked again just as she’d almost calmed herself down. Flashes of everyone she cared about shuttered through her mind like a zoetrope.  

_Clint._

She immediately felt nauseous and had to tamp down the bile rising in her throat. He was too far away, she wouldn’t get that answer for too long. She fell to her knees behind Steve and clasped one hand to his shoulder as much for his comfort as to keep her own bearings.

“Barnes?” She was almost afraid to ask, but they needed to take stock.

Steve shuddered under her touch and she waited with a heavy heart for him to shake his head in the negative. She wanted to collapse into him, give and get comfort when they both needed it most.

Not yet.

“Sam?” her voice cracked. _Please please please…_

Steve’s head shot up and it shocked her enough that she fell back on her heels.

“Sam!” he exclaimed and struggled to his feet.

“Sam!” he called out once he was fully upright and his body was spinning like a sprinkler head. He went to take a step and that’s when they both saw Rhodey begin to cry. “Please,” Steve begged, but Rhodey kept shaking his head.

“He was right next to me– I looked, I called, he was right– I couldn’t find him anywhere. He’s not on comms.”

Steve deflated, but didn’t fall back into his stupor. He was awake now.

“We need– we have to find out who’s left.”

It was Bruce who answered him. “We are what’s left.”

“Tony?” Steve countered and Bruce’s eyes lit up.

“Oh fuck! The others!”

“Exactly. There was more than one battlefield. Rhodes, are you able to contact Tony?”

“No,” he admitted sadly. “Our radios are good, but even he hasn’t mastered interplanetary communication. We have to wait for him to find a way back to Earth, if he’s… if he’s even around to find a way.”

“We have to hope he is. We have to. It can’t just be us,” Steve finished on a whisper.

\---

Natasha stayed present though sheer force of will to help Steve with logistics.

They were grateful to find Shuri back at the palace and she and Okoye immediately set about trying to triage Wakanda.

The rest of them flew back to the Avengers facility. Thor took that time to fill them in on what he’d been through with Rocket – the name of the talking racoon that Natasha had not at all been keeping a wide berth from. Thor and Asgard was one thing, but she didn’t have the brain power right then to accept all the crazy that existed in the rest of the universe. Earth was hard enough.

She focused on flying, but her mind kept glitching on her last image of Clint. His hair had been getting too long and it, combined with the end-of-the-world panic in his eyes, had made him look as young as the day they’d first met. He had been leaving to go into hiding and she had been happy then because he was getting to safety, he wasn’t going to get shot again and cause her to regret her every decision to become the type of person who didn’t seek out revenge.

Safety. What an idiot she had been.

She imagined him huddled in that bunker with his family- _fuck, Laura, the kids… Nathaniel_. Her eyes squeezed shut. They would have no idea what was happening as they started to vanish one by one.

No. Only half. There was a chance. There had to be a chance that not all of them were taken. That Clint wasn’t.

“Eyes on the road, Romanoff.” Steve attempted a teasing tone, but it fell flat. It did succeed in snapping her eyes open.

“Shit.” She shook her head as if there was any chance that that was enough to clear Clint from her mind.

He rested his hand on her shoulder in a reflection of what she’d done earlier that day. She reached up to cover his hand and keep it there.

He was immediately concerned and hunched down next to her so his body heat warmed her side. “Why don’t you let Rhodey take over. You should try to get some rest.”

She scoffed at him. “No, it’s not– that’s not what I– “ she paused and took a deep breath to try to collect herself. Her heart and lungs were still fighting her every step of the way and her breath hitched half-way in. She gave up and flicked stricken eyes in Steve’s direction. “Clint,” she merely said.

“Shit,” he echoed.

Natasha knew it wasn’t because Steve had forgotten about Clint, it was just that Steve’s list of people he cared about was at least eight times longer than Natasha’s and he hadn’t gotten around to worrying about Clint yet. Being the only person on the planet who knew exactly how much the archer meant to her, baring Clint himself, she could see him internally smack himself for not having brought it up sooner – in the same way that her first question to him had been about Bucky.

“I’m trying to be the responsible one, but it is literally taking everything I have not to fly us directly to his safe house right now.”

She saw how much he wanted to say _“Then why don’t we?”_ but she couldn’t let him go there. She couldn’t let him be that kind of amazing friend or she would crack. So, she pressed a hand to his cheek and smiled briefly.

“We’re almost back to New York. I just have to get everyone there and then…” she drifted off.

“And then we’re going to find Clint.”

She didn’t question the ‘we’. Because he _was_ that good of a friend and she was exactly selfish enough to pull him away from piecing back together the fragments of their world, their country, their team, for one more day of his support. There was no chance she could walk into that bunker to find nothing but ash and not need Steve to hold her together.

Just the thought brought tears to her eyes and she clutched at his hand. “Two more hours and we’ll be home.”

\---

Thor surprised her with a hug when she didn’t exit the Quinjet with everyone else. It was brief but strong and he kissed her temple.

“Bring him home.”

Not _“I hope you find him”_ or _“Good luck”_ or anything else that would have made her cringe. She was grateful for his optimism, especially considering how many people he had lost in quick succession.

Bruce didn’t realize what was happening until the bay doors were closing. His mind had been whirring with ways to get a signal to Tony and so he looked back at her a little stupefied. Then, Thor said something to him on his way out and Bruce's expression softened. He nodded to her in understanding of the need that drove her.

They couldn’t get back in the air fast enough for Natasha and she nearly stalled an engine in her haste.

“It’ll be f–” Steve started to say, a habitual platitude born of his need to comfort, but he stopped himself just in time. “Just breathe,” he said instead.

“I don’t– if he’s not–” she bit her lip and pushed them forward through the air. “Steve, he’s all I–”

“He is not all you have,” Steve interrupted.

“Look, I don’t know how we get through this. I won’t let myself think past each individual minute because it’s too daunting, because a world without Buck– I can’t go through that again…” he sucked in a breath but it did nothing to hide the shake in his voice. He turned to look out the front window from his spot in the co-pilot seat. “We have to hope for the best. And if we’re left with the worst, then at least we have each other.”

Natasha watched the clouds pass below them. She wished now that they hadn’t let Clint and Scott go full dark. A quick phone call and she would just _know_ , one way or another. They had other ways of contacting each other, of course, but it would take her just as much time to piece that together as it would to just go there. And if Clint wasn’t on the other side… she’d rather her eyes tell her that than hours of radio silence.

\---

She dropped them down in the nearest clearing which was about a half mile from the actual bunker. They had put him in a remote part of Northern Michigan; his family home had been too exposed in all their minds. The security of being underground had seemed like a smart idea at the time. They had been too focused on realism, though, and not the magic that had come for them all in the end.

They hiked through the cold forest in minutes and when her sensor pinged that they’d reached the bunker door, they pulled out the two collapsible shovels and started digging. That was the part that took too long and had her nearly clawing at the dirt to find the door handle.

“Natasha. Natasha!” Steve’s voice intruded on her one-track mind and she blinked to find his hands over hers on the large wheel that opened the bunker door. She had been tugging ineffectually at it and had started letting out panicked mewls amidst her straining grunts. It was stuck.

“I’ve got it,” Steve reassured and took over spinning. The door came open like it hadn’t ever been closed. She normally would have made some quip about his super strength, but she was too grateful to come up with one.

They dropped down a few feet to the secondary door. This one had both a handprint sensor and a keypad security code – both of which had been entrusted to Natasha and Steve. They opened it faster than the first door.

The instant the heavy steel creaked open, Natasha didn’t wait to crawl down the 15-foot ladder, she immediately started calling out Clint’s name. There was no immediate response. Steve dropped straight down not bothering with the ladder and Natasha chased after him skipping rungs.

“Clint!” Steve’s voice boomed in the metal space.

It was large as far as bunkers were concerned. About 1000 square feet to allow for all the amenities of a two-bedroom apartment. One of the last surviving perks of S.H.I.E.L.D. The ladder ended in a small antechamber that quickly opened up into the main room that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. The only actual closed off spaces were the bathroom and the two small bedrooms.

There was no one in the main room.

Natasha could hear her pulse thundering in her ears again. She searched quickly for any bits of ash – anything more than the expected dust an underground bunker might naturally have.

“Steve,” her voice shook when she saw a small scattering of ash on one of the dining room chairs. She reached out as if to motion him closer to see, but instead he clasped her arm in his. It had been shaking so badly, she was surprised it hadn’t dislocated itself.

He kept moving forward to invade her space and admitted softly, “There’s more by the couch.”

“No, no, no, no, no… this is not how it ends. Damnit!” she cursed in anguish.

“Clint!” she suddenly shouted, stepping away from Steve and heading to the first closed door. It was one of the bedrooms and it was also empty. Her eyes skipped over the family photos on the bedside table and the familiar ranch quilt acting as a bedspread.

“Clint!” she shouted again into open air.

“Nat.”

She spun to the doorway and was confronted with a tear-stricken Steve.

“No, no, no, no, no…” she continued like a mantra under her breath. There was no life she could picture for herself without Clint in it. They had run the gamut of relationships – enemies, allies, friends, even briefly lovers before he’d met Laura – and had become something more than the sum of all of those things. It had taken her her entire life to understand what love was and she only knew it because of him.

“The other two rooms are empty and there’s–” he coughed and looked down away from her gaze, “there’s more ash in the bathroom.”

He reached for her when she collapsed to the ground at his words. She caught herself on her palms on the concrete and just stared blankly at the gray.

“How– how could it have taken all of them?” There weren’t tears in her voice. She wasn’t crying. There was too much disbelief for that. “It’s supposed to be half– _half_ the universe right? Why would it take _all_ of them?!” She snapped her head up, fire in her eyes, but Steve had no answers.

She stumbled up onto her feet and reentered the main room. It couldn’t be true. She went into the kids’ bedroom, halting at the empty crib the sight of which caused her entire body to lurch in protest, then moving fast and opening up the dresser drawers as if she’d find Nathaniel there amongst the socks.

“Natasha,” Steve said sympathetically as he watched her. He stayed by the couch as she spun in circles, moving in and out of each space, pulling open bureaus and side tables and flipping over rugs like Clint and his family would appear in the paper-thin space beneath.

“Clint! Clint!!” she screamed again and again until she made herself hoarse.

Eventually, Steve fell boneless onto the couch, put his head into his hands, and finally succumbed to the full body sobs he’d been holding in since Bucky had faded before his eyes. They had both lost their closest someone.

He heard the bookcase scrape against the floor to his left but didn’t bother raising his head to stop Natasha’s fruitless searching. She would burn herself out soon and he’d need some part of himself more stable to catch her when her own sobs came.

“Cap?”

He didn’t register it at first. He looked up, expecting a distraught Natasha, not even processing the fact that she never called him Cap. What he found instead was a traumatized Clint peeking out from behind the bookcase and two tiny sneakers shuffling behind his legs.

“Barton?” he asked as if that were even a question.

Clint shoved the bookcase open another foot and squeezed out from within a hidden room. A little boy followed him, clinging to his legs like Clint would disappear. The wrenching thought made Steve’s heart sink – because at least part of the Barton family had done exactly that.

Steve stood and pulled the other man to him with all his strength, very nearly crushing Clint.

“Thank god.”

Clint pulled away a little reluctantly. “I– I thought I heard Nat. Is she…?” he swallowed heavily, scanning around the room and not hiding his disappointment when he didn’t see anyone else.

“Yes!” Steve exclaimed, a little too enthusiastically and causing Clint and his son to jump. Steve spun around trying to figure out where Natasha had disappeared to. It wasn’t exactly a huge space and she had just been running from one corner to the other. _Where could she have…?_

And then he saw black leather poking out from behind one of the bedroom doorways. She was on the ground facing into the smaller room and far enough away that she wouldn’t have heard them. He ran to her.

“Natasha! He’s here!” He gripped the door frame when he reached the room so he could spin himself around 180-degrees and fall to the floor facing her. He could immediately see why she hadn’t noticed what was going on. She had also finally succumbed to her own sobs. Her body was trembling, held up only by the wall at her back, and her head was buried in her bent knees.

“Nat,” he said as he pushed at her shoulders to get her to look at him. “He’s here. Clint is alive! He was in a panic room.”

She looked dumbly at him, her eyes so flooded she couldn’t clearly see him. She had let herself fall far enough into grief that she wasn’t hearing him either.

“Nat?”

Clint had been right behind Steve when the blonde had bolted from the main room and dropped down to join them. Steve shifted to the side so Clint could be centered in Natasha’s field of view. He witnessed from mere inches away as Clint’s soul started to piece itself back together in the presence of his best friend. 

“Nat,” he breathed again, no less heartbreaking in its fragility. He placed his hands on either side of her head, his thumbs rubbing against her cheeks. “You’re here. You’re real.” 

Her eyes were starting to clear, the water blurring her vision slipping down her face as tears. She couldn’t seem to find a place to focus and her eyes darted a hundred different directions as if recalculating Clint pore by pore. 

“Clint?”

She reached out, her arms coming around his and her hands shifting over his shoulders and the sides of his neck not willing to settle in any one place.

“You’re not– you’re really– here?” Her knees fell open so he could push further forward into her space and press a hard kiss to her forehead. His hands were still firmly bracketing her face and he kept them there as he dropped his own to rub cheek to cheek and temple to temple until he returned to mash their foreheads together.

“I am,” he bit out, cutting off something that made his entire face contort in pain. He forced the wince back and opened his eyes to look straight into Natasha’s. “Thank god you are too.”

She hiccupped on a sob that had been lodged in her throat since Steve had entered the room and pushed forward to wrap her arms so tightly around Clint’s shoulders that Steve wasn’t sure anyone could pull them apart. Clint didn’t mind her desperation, though, and adjusted his weight so he could reciprocate. His arms banded across her back like he thought it would secure her to him for eternity.

Steve was going to stand to give them some privacy, but he was honestly equally as relieved that one of their friends had survived and wasn’t willing to separate himself just yet. He placed a grounding hand on Clint’s back. At least one had made it – there were bound to be more. He had to believe that.

“Laura?” Natasha eventually questioned, barely loud enough to be heard. Clint answered by hugging her tighter and burying his head in her neck. She and Steve could both feel when he started crying.

“Lila? Cooper?” Natasha continued desperately. Her mouth was suddenly dry. They were as much her family as his – in that he had made her a part of the family many years ago.

“Auntie Nat?” a young voice said from the doorway. She jerked her head around to see who it was, not letting go of Clint.

Cooper’s 8-year-old eyes were bloodshot and his hair was disheveled, but he looked perfect to her in every way. Her relief bubbled out of her in an inappropriate laugh and she unwrapped one of her arms to reach for the boy.

“Oh Cooper, thank god. Come here.” He scuttled forward a step. “Come here,” she sobbed and pulled him into the hug so his little head pressed against Clint’s shoulder. “I thought you were all gone. I thought he’d taken you all.”

Her tears came back full force then and Clint eventually let go of her enough that he could wrap one arm around his son and shift Natasha so her head was tucked under his chin.

Steve did leave them then, knowing the darkness of the panic room wasn’t hiding three more secrets in its depths and letting his eyes fall on the three piles of ash they had found scattered throughout the bunker. His heart broke anew at Clint’s loss and he collapsed on the couch and resumed his position from earlier as he let his mind wander back to Bucky and that last look of confusion he’d had before he’d crumbled.

Clint started quietly telling Natasha what had happened to his family - how Laura had disintegrated first in his arms, then Lila and Nathaniel; how he’d shut himself and Cooper in the panic room literally out of sheer panic and not knowing what was happening or how to stop it; how he’d been paralyzed with grief and uncertainty and had stayed locked inside until he’d heard Natasha calling for him. He asked questions too, softly and carefully, and Natasha did her best to answer what she could.

Steve looked on at the family unit – maybe not the traditional kind, but one none-the-less – and vowed to find a way to return its other half. To return his other half. And everyone else who had been lost.

There had to be a way.


End file.
